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Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Top Layoffs week ended 10-29:

Manufacturing topped the list, as United Technologies announced 2,000 layoffs to offset costs related to the shutdown of a jet engine overhaul facility, and Ford Foundry is laying off 300 Beech Park OH workers. Government was next as Savannah River Nuclear Solutions (a DOE contractor) announced it would layoff 1,400 workers by 2012 as it completes work under economic stimulus funds. New York State announced the layoff of 898 employees throughout New York State by year end.

Health care is feeling the pinch, as West Penn Allegheny Health System is cutting 400 Pittsburgh area workers. Aerospace company Hawker Beechcraft is letting go 350 Wichita workers, citing slowing demand for small airplanes.

Monday, October 29, 2007

”Would you ask someone to rewrite the recommendation they gave you if it had typo's or grammatical errors?”

It’s a tricky question, and depends on your relationship with the reference. On one hand, typos and errors give the impression of authenticity in a recommendation. You’ll notice that I leave most typos and errors in the recommendations I’ve received - because they come from real people (complete with imperfections), just like you. Leaving these types of mistakes in a reference may be preferable for situations where realism is more important than detail.

However, there may be different ways to handle this situation, depending on the job you seek. For instance, if you are looking for a finance or accounting job that requires precision, your reference’s typos, spelling errors or grammatical mistakes may reflect poorly on you. A hiring manager might consider your reference’s mistakes as reflecting a non-detailed environment at your prior employer - They might also extrapolate a lack of precision in your own skills. In addition, if you seek a job in copywriting, marketing, journalism, publishing or other careers involving English skills, a hiring manager might consider your reference’s mistakes as indicative of your own competency.

In these cases, I would recommend editing a reference letter (or online reference) and politely asking your referral to make the changes you’ve outlined.

Why would you choose a reference if you aren’t 100% sure of what they will say?

It’s not just how your reference reflects upon you - what’s even more important is how well they provide social proof of your story. If you haven’t first coached your reference to reinforce the aspect of your experience you want to highlight, you leave it up to chance that your reference guesses correctly. So it comes down to ... how well can your reference read your mind?

Additionally, you may have a different story to tell different hiring managers to support assertions that you have already solved an employer’s current problems and meet its specific needs. If you merely ask your references to “put in a good word for you”, you have no influence over what your reference actually says.

How well have you managed your references?

In order to have more control over your reference’s comments, choose some references by how close you are to them. While the Chairman of GE might seem to be a great reference, the former manager who is your biggest fan may be a better choice to support the details of how you can solve a hiring manager’s problems.

Finally, it’s wise to have enough references that you can pick and choose a few to utilize for each employer, based on the portion of your story they can support. For instance, you may have done an amazing job building revenue for one manager, but have done stellar job cutting costs for another. If your target company is in a growth mode, why would you want a former employer to tell them what a creative cost cutter you are?

You don’t have to give the hiring manager a list of ten references. I recommend giving a few who will each tell a customized version of your story, after you’ve had the chance to coach them which portion of your story you’d like them to support.

Sunday, October 28, 2007

I can’t begin to count the number of times a candidate has asked me if they should hide their age, change their experience, or try to adopt a different personality, so they can appear to be someone other than themselves. To make it worse, many recruiters either turn a blind eye, or actually encourage this.

It wastes your time because hiring managers aren’t stupid. They read many resumes after they are pre-screened by HR staff & recruiters that read thousands of resumes. So whatever trick you’re trying to pull to mask the truth…they’ve seen it.

The easiest example is age. So many candidates blame a poorly thought out job strategy on age – complaining “I’m too old” or “Hiring managers want someone with more experience”. Guess what…it’s not your age. It’s how you’ve branded yourself, the perception you give, the skills you choose to highlight, and how you describe your skills.

It’s so easy to play the age game, pass the blame to your grey hair, and devise ways to mask your experience. I see it in over half the resumes I look at, and the easiest giveaways are missing dates. Does it take a rocket scientist to realize that if you leave your college graduation dates off your resume, you’re probably hiding your age? Duh!

But what if you get lucky, trick the reader to think you’re interview-worthy, and land the interview? If you’ve given the impression that you’re a hip 30 year old gel-head, what impression will you make when you meet in person, with your thinning grey hair? At best, you’ll make a first impression of disappointment…at worst one of deceit. Either way, at that point, your skills and talents won’t matter - you’ve wasted your time and set yourself up for disappointment.

Why play that game when there’s a better way?

Instead of trying to play Trick or Treat with your resume, why not look for companies that WANT someone like you? There are plenty of companies that want grey hair, and plenty of firms that want younger talent. There are companies that want someone who’s extroverted and others that want a quieter, serious employee. Instead of dressing yourself up for Halloween, look for companies that value someone like you!

OK, How can I find which companies want someone like me?

Information Rules! Talk to your friends who work at target companies…they are your best resource to understand what type of person and what type of personality succeeds within a particular corporate style. Every company has its own unwritten rules, or culture. When employers look at culture, they look for someone who can easily communicate and fit in with 80% of the workforce who have a similar style.

So if everyone at a target company is 40+, been there 20 years, and wears pocket protectors, it might not be a such a good fit for a 26 year old tattooed and pierced woman. If it’s a jeans and t-shirt environment, this company might not be such a good fit for someone who’s experience has been working at a large bank. Or maybe a video game development company with a game room, music room, and weekly happy hours, might not be such a good fit for a guy who looks like Kevin Malone (from The Office). Maybe a guy like Kevin would be happier in a pocket protector environment.
(Picture courtesy http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattmatlock/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

But what if you don’t know anyone at your target company? This is where Linkedin and Facebook can provide such a huge edge. Use your social network to gain introductions to employees at your target companies. But don’t waste the introduction to ask for a job or to pass a resume – there’s a much more valuable use.

Instead, do some espionage. Gain critical information about a company’s culture and style. Ask what type of person succeeds, and what type of person fails within a target company and department. Ask what the hiring manager is like…is she a team player, or a maverick? Ask how does he dresses…casually or formally? Ask about the hiring manager’s communication style…is it open door, or do you have to wait a week to get an appointment?

If you really want some great insight into a company’s style, use guerrilla tactics. Find a nearby bar, and head there at 5:00pm on a Friday. That’s right, use Happy Hour. Talk to a few people, including the bartender, you’ll find people who work for your target company. At a bar, information is so inexpensive...just a round or two of drinks. But think of the wealth of information you can pick up. Plus, you might even get a referral for your offer of drinks. You’ll see how they dress and act, and probably pick up some great scoop.

Armed with all this information, could you figure out if your personality is a likely fit, or if your time is better spent somewhere else? There are so many uses for this information, such as insight as to a company’s challenges and opportunities…so you can show how you’ve already solved these problems and leveraged these same opportunities in your past firm.

When you can clearly demonstrate you’ve already solved an employers’ problems, or maximized the same opportunities…limiters like age, dress, or personality stop being such relevant factors. These are the “20 percent-ers”…the employees whose skills and experiences are so important that fit, culture, and style take a back seat. Now the ball’s in your court to decide if you really want to work at a company where everyone wears pocket protectors, and looks like Kevin.

Instead of trying to trick your prospective employer, doesn’t it seem like a better tactic to treat some employees to a drink – and pick their brains?

Saturday, October 27, 2007

The good news behind this is private sector jobs increased 825K year to date, led by the health care industry that added 21K jobs per month and food service has added 104K jobs in 2010.

Job growth still was inconsistent, effecting some cities, industries and job functions more than others. Some job markets remain in the dumper - Miami and Los Angeles held flat but Riverside CA dropped 2 spots - all three remain in deep trouble with up to a 1:8 (Riverside and Los Angeles were 1:8) ratio of unemployed workers to job advertisements.

Growth by Function:

Indeed tracks employment trends by industry each month. Indeed's September 2010 trend by industry survey shows growth in all fields. While health care shows the least growth from last year at 14% compared to September 2009, there were almost twice the number of health care openings (811K) than retail (410K), the next closest industry. The greatest changes were in transportation (a massive 111%), manufacturing (68%), media/newspaper (67%) and retail (65%).

Growth by Metro Area:

Indeed.com publishes a monthly report of where the jobs are, giving insights into which job market is strongest and which is weakest. Indeed's job market survey shows slightly increased job advertising activity, demonstrating very slow growth.

Indeed's September 2010 survey of job advertisements show the job market is strongest in Washington DC, San Jose CA, Baltimore MD, NYC NY and Cleveland (???) OH. Washington has been at the top of the list for a while, as federal government spending remains high. San Jose and Baltimore each gained a spot at the expense of NYC. The remainder of the 10 top job markets are geographically in the Northeast, North Central, and Northwest US (plus Austin): Cleveland has a 1:1 ratio, while Hartford CT, Boston MA, Seattle WA, Milwaukee WI and Austin TX, all share a 1:2 ratio. In addition, the top 21 job markets are at at least a 1:2 ratio of unemployed to job advertisements.

Some of these ratios improved slightly last month, while others fell. Rochester NY and Buffalo each picked up 5 spots, while Chicago IL and Cincinnatti OH each picked up 4 spots. On the other hadn Portland OR dropped 6 spots and Salt Lake City UT dropped 4. This indicates that job growth continues to be spotty - we are starting to see some growth in some selected places, but it typically hasn’t been sustainable in multiple months. The ratios are improving in markets overall but improving slowly.

To summarize the findings of these reports, we're seeing continued slight job growth suggesting a slow recovery remains tentative and inconsistent. The effects of census jobs are over and won’t have an effect on future hiring.

Friday, October 26, 2007

Candidates, especially in finance and technology, seem to have a difficult time presenting estimates on their resume. I found this phenomena interesting, since you’d think that candidates from these fields would easily be able to estimate - because they are so analytical.

With many clients, their analytical nature is the very thing that makes estimating so difficult. Having some personal experience in analytical fields, I eventually recognized that many of these candidates have built their careers upon being right 99.9% of the time. There’s a discomfort in many of these candidates that making an estimate without having all the back up details can bring them far out of their comfort zone. Because there’s a fear that the estimate might be wrong.

But here’s the thing - it’s not going to be audited. No one will lose money based on a resume estimate that is less accurate than desired. In addition, resume estimates don’t have to be accurate to within the nth degree.

How to estimate on your resume:

How do you estimate when you don’t have full information? Many job seekers could improve their resume by including estimates. While I never suggest that a candidate lie on their resume, there are situations where an educated “guestimate” is the best answer available.

There may be situations where a candidate no longer has access to critical information - for example, prior jobs. There may be other situations where the candidate didn’t have access to the final results of their work. In these cases, most candidates won’t include an estimate, because they aren’t confident in the accuracy of the number. These are cases where making a best efforts guess, based on the information you can access (or remember), is a candidate’s best option.

Just be careful when you guestimate - be reasonable in your estimates. It’s critical that you can answer any interview questions about your accomplishments confidently - you don’t want to give the impression that you’re embellishing or lying. Rather, just say that your figures were estimates, and move on to describe the accomplishment.

What should you estimate on your resume?

Include estimates that add depth and importance to your accomplishments. Estimate how your accomplishments effected your employer. An accomplishment that generated a million dollars of profit will be viewed as more important than one that generated 2 bucks.

Remember that your next employer is hiring you to solve pain and make money for the organization. Since they probably don’t know you well, hiring managers use past accomplishments as a proxy that you will create value for your next employer. Estimates can emphasize your accomplishments, to show they made a significant impact on your past employer.

Readers - How do you estimate on your resume? Employers and recruiters - how do you view candidate estimates? What do they tell you?

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Job Openings Added This Week - 10/25/10:

The business service, health care, transportation, financial services and telecommunications verticals are the top industries with new job postings this week based on a survey of the nation’s leading job advertisements added during the past seven days for the week of 10/25/10.

Business service led new hiring advertisements this week as IBM, Deloitte, ADP, Booz Allen, SAIC and CSC were included in the top job advertisers this week. Health care was next as HCR ManorCare, UnitedHealth Group, Genesis Healthcare, HCA Health Services and DaVita advertised for staff this week.

UPS began its holiday hiring push and was third in new advertisements this week. Edward Jones joined the top 10 companies with new advertisements this week. Telecommunications was next as AT&T and Verizon were in the top firms adding advertisements for new hires this week.

UPS started its holiday hiring season and hit the top 10 hiring firms this week. Banking continued hiring as Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorganChase were heavy advertisers. Hospitality rounds out the top of the list as Pizza Hut, Marriott, Cracker Barrel, Hilton and Boston Market continued heavy job advertisements.

Based on surveys of US job advertisements in the top job board aggregators, the following companies searched for the most job openings as of 10/25/10:

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Top Layoffs week ended 10-22:

Technology topped the list, as Xerox announced 2,500 layoffs to streamline costs from its newly acquired ACS division. Government was next as the State of California announced it would layoff 1,000 janitors, and the Los Angeles Unified School District cut 990 employees.

Entertainment is feeling the pinch, as New York OTB sites are cutting an additional 500 workers. Manufacturing company Whirlpool is cutting its second shift, putting 400 Benton Harbor MI workers out of a job.

Finally, agriculture company Hines Nursery cut 256 workers as it struggles to find a way though bankruptcy and trying to hit profitability in the tough ornamental plant business.

Inclusion on this listing doesn’t mean the entire industry is down, as some from the same sectors appeared on the “Who’s Hiring” article published 10/18/10.

Job seekers: You might want to look in greener pastures than these companies.

Organizations announcing or rumored layoffs for the week ended 10/22/10:

Monday, October 22, 2007

So pack away your crystal ball, and check out Employment Trends http://www.simplyhired.com/a/jobtrends/home by Simply Hired. Employment Trends allows you to graph the % of total jobs on Simply Hired by keyword combination over the past 6 months. So compare “Left Hand Martian” (0%) to “Ruby Developer” (.09%, increased 68% over the past 18 months) and you’ll see that the market isn't so good for little green men.

As a job seeker, how can you use this? As you figure out your subject matter expertise (see http://recareered.blogspot.com/2008/03/which-subject-matter-am-i-expert-at.html ), Employment Trends can help you discover which skills are in greater demand, and which are growing or shrinking.
Also, you can quickly see what’s happening in the local market. Just search the name of your city or state to see how jobs are trending.

Best yet, combine the two, and you can really get some interesting trend information. You’ll see that in the last 18 months:

This comparison demonstrates that the current Chicago market for developers is rebounding more slowly than the coasts. Recessions typically hit the midwest last and the midwest is typically last to recover.

How about this?

Mac Jobs nationally increased by 24%, but increased in Chicago by 51%

PC jobs nationally decreased by 22%, but increased in Chicago by 18%

This comparison shows that nationally, while job listings are increasing, Mac and PC jobs are increasing at about the same rate. But in Chicago, Mac jobs are increasing much faster than PC jobs - this suggests that the advertising and design market may be rebounding faster than the overall market driven by marketing and advertising spend.

Hiring Trends is a great tool to play with, to help you figure out which Subject Matter Expertise will give you the best chance of finding your next career move. My Dad, a labor economist geek, could spend hours playing with this site as his new toy.

Pretty cool, huh? How will you use Hiring Trends to determine which subject matter expertise you should choose?

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Tamar’s book provides a great introduction to the many tools at your disposal, and a quick and dirty guide about how to implement them, without getting too technical - perfect for job seekers.

Tamar’s basic primer for social marketing first describes what social media really is, many of the major tools, how to participate and proper etiquette of the social web. The New Community Rules gives some great lessons in the right way to introduce yourself to a new connection on social networks, how to leverage that new connection for maximum effect, and how to ask for an introduction.

Yeah, yeah ... I know you THINK you know the right ways to do it, but as the recipient of 50-100 introduction requests each day, I can tell you that most of you (something like 95% of you) do it wrong. It’s a good thing that I’m not picky about who I connect to (with a network of over 22M connections, how could I be picky?), but many of the people job seekers try to connect to ARE picky ... very picky. Say the wrong thing and you’re trashed or worse - IDK’d (marked as I don’t know ... the social networking equivalent of spam).

Most of you could learn a lot from Tamar’s lessons and find that you’ll get more connections and introductions.

Beyond etiquette, “The New Community Rules” defines the major types of social media, and the main players in each. Many job seekers know about Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter, but there are dozens of tools out there that can help you in your job search. Tamar gives a quick guide to each, so you can decide which ones can help you, and how to get started quickly.

“The New Community Rules” gives advice like “ ... if you were at a party, would you ask everyone in the room to help you find a job?”. Tamar advises to treat people online in the same way you would in real life.

While some of this book is more directed to small business - just skim over that part. The parts that are relevant to job seekers make the book worthwhile. For instance, “The New Community Rules” shows you things like:

How to monitor your market on the web: If you’re a job seeker, your market is the job market for your industry or function. You’ve set up searches for jobs on Monster & CareerBuilder already. Wouldn’t it be valuable to set up searches for mentions of industry/function on the entire web, including mentions in blogs, forums, comments, and social networks - all in the same place, and have it emailed to you?

Reputation Management: What are people saying about you on the web? If people aren’t saying anything about you, how can you get them to start making positive comments? What if people are saying negative things about someone else who shares your name?

Why you should blog: It’s more important for job seekers than small businesses and it’s easier too. How can you get a blog up and running in an hour, even if you hate writing?

Why Twitter is relevant to your search? Twitter is hugely discounted by most job seekers and it’s gaining in relevance very quickly as it’s gotten indexed to Google, Yahoo & Bing and as jobs are often being posted to Twitter BEFORE the job boards - because Twitter is free (and because it’s indexed to search engines).

How to use Social News to build your reputation and expertise: If you blog, Social News sites can amplify your message and your findability. If you’re not blogging, Social News sites will help you build your reputation (but not as much as blogging will).

“The New Community Rules” is worth a read by job seekers who aren’t social media experts and is simple enough for those who are just sticking their toe into the social media waters for the first time. If you have under 1K connections on Linkedin, don’t manage groups, have fewer than 300 Twitter followers and don’t have an active blog ... and you want to try some tactics to stand out in your job search - this book is for you.

Find “The New Community Rules: Marketing On The Social Web” on Amazon.

Disclosure: While Tamar was kind enough to send me a copy of her book to review, I’m not receiving any affiliate commissions or compensation for sales of this book (That make you happy, FTC?).

Friday, October 19, 2007

Job boards are most often used by candidates to search for openings and apply directly to jobs. Applying for jobs in this way puts the candidate behind the curve. By the time a job is posted online the employer often already has a short list of candidates that they’ve met through networking or that their staff have referred. When you apply for jobs through job boards, you are competing with outside recruiters (or have to go through a recruiter pre-screen before getting to the employer.

Anyone out there think that this is a great way to apply for a job?

Yet, it’s the way that most candidates apply for jobs - because it’s what they know.

There’s a better way ... Get ahead of the curve by networking with people from companies that are hiring.

Instead of looking for specific jobs, instead use job boards for market research to see which companies are hiring. Here’s an example: Today, I was talking to a client who was concerned that ageism was preventing him from finding a new job in marketing. He has a large network of contacts, he’s a friendly guy, and he’s not afraid to talk to people. Because his network is mainly people he’s known from his professional career, he knows people who are mainly in the same industry. He may be networking, but he’s probably networking with the wrong people because his networking efforts weren’t targeted to high growth companies or industries.

I asked my client to open up SimplyHired and search for all jobs across the US (search for the term “a” or “the” since all job descriptions probably have one of these words in the ad). SimplyHired also has filters for a variety of types of companies - Dog friendly, GLBT friendly, Mom friendly, and 50+ companies. I directed my client to click on the 50+ companies with the word “a” or “the” in the description. When the search results came in, we looked in the left column, and clicked on companies - that allowed us to see which 50+ companies nationally are advertising for the most employees.

The specific companies weren’t so important, because they might not be in the city where my client lives. But when you look at the industries, you’d find that hospitals, health care, financial services and insurance companies were some of the top hiring firms. Even if none of the companies are local, even if none of the companies are advertising a job in your field, there’s a few things for certain - these companies are hiring and they are looking for people over 50. If there are a number of companies from the same industry on this list, it’s a good bet that companies in your area are also hiring (may just not thousands of people) and they are probably open to older workers. In addition, companies who are vendors to these companies may also be hiring, and they may also be open to age 50+ workers.

Doesn’t that sound like a target list to you?

The concept works no matter how old you are. Use job boards to understand the industries that are hiring nationally and locally ... even if they aren’t posting jobs in your field. Companies and industries that are going through growth are often very fertile places to network,

In this way you can focus your networking time so you “fish where the fish are”.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Job Openings Added This Week - 10/18/10:

The business service, telecommunications, transportation, hospitality, retail and health care verticals are the top industries with new job postings this week based on a survey of the nation’s leading job advertisements added during the past seven days for the week of 10/18/10.

Business service led new hiring advertisements this week as IBM, ADP, Booz Allen, Deloitte, and CSC were included in the top job advertisers this week. Telecommunications was next as AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile were in the top firms adding advertisements for new hires this week.

Transportation companies UPS and CR England were in the top firms adding advertisements this week. Hospitality firms were searching for new employees as McDonald’s, Starbucks, Hilton and Marriott added advertisements this week .

Retail was also hiring as JC Penney, Sears, Blockbuster, Kmart, Macy’s, Lowe’s and Carquest Auto Parts were in the top new advertisers this week. Health care rounded out the list as HCR ManorCare, HCA Health Services, Kaiser Permanente, Genesis Healthcare, Gentiva Health Services, Genzyme, DaVita and Kindred Health advertised for staff this week.

Total Job Openings week of 10/18/10:

Business Service firms led hiring companies as IBM, Deloitte, Booz Allen, ADP, SAIC and CSC were actively staffing. Telecommunications was next with AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile still staffing actively.

Banking continued hiring as Bank of America, Wells Fargo and JPMorganChase were heavy advertisers. Hospitality companies remained top hiring firms as Pizza Hut, Marriott, Applebee’s and Cracker Barrel continued heavy job advertisements.

Health care continues in a strong recruiting mode as HCR ManorCare, Kaiser Permanente, Gentiva Health, DaVita, Genesis Healthcare, HCA Healthcare, Community Health Systems and UnitedHealth were top job advertisers. Retail rounds out the top of the list as Macy’s, Sears, Dick’s Sporting Goods, JCPenney, Murphy USA, Toys “R” Us and Lowe’s were in the top hiring firms.

Based on surveys of US job advertisements in the top job board aggregators, the following companies searched for the most job openings as of 10/18/10:

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Top Layoffs week ended 10-15:

Government topped the list, as the State of New York announced 2,000 layoffs as the state continues struggling to meet its budget. Insurance was next as Aon announced 1,500-1,800 job cuts worldwide and US Fidelis had cutbacks of 663 employees in Missouri.

Manufacturing company Quad Graphics laid off 700+ workers as it closes its Dyersberg TN plant, while Avon is closing its Springdale OH plant, cutting 400 staff. Pharmaceuticals company Sanofi-Aventis announced more layoffs as the company is closing its Malvern PA plant affecting 412 workers.

Health Care rounded out the list as UMass Memorial Health Care is laying off 350 employees.

Inclusion on this listing doesn’t mean the entire industry is down, as some from the same sectors appeared on the “Who’s Hiring” article published 10/11/10.

Job seekers: You might want to look in greener pastures than these companies.

Organizations announcing or rumored layoffs for the week ended 10/15/10:

Monday, October 15, 2007

I find that many managerial candidates want to define themselves as leaders, so they use the words leader or leadership over and over on their resumes. This won't have much of an impact on their audience (the hiring manager), but it helps personally reinforce the candidate's ego. Since many experienced job changers write egocentric resumes (writing for themselves as the audience, not the hiring manager), this shouldn't come as a surprise.

Hiring managers don't search for leadership on resumes, they search for it in person.

They may assume possibility of leadership by candidate’s title, years of experience, and most importantly ... accomplishments. Hiring managers don't believe when a candidate says they are a leader - they've heard that many many times.

Hiring managers see leadership when a candidate demonstrates accomplishments.

When writing your resume, consider who your audience is. Are you writing it for yourself? Or for the hiring manager?

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Including soft skills gives the hiring manager an initial sense how well you’ll fit into the organization. While soft skills probably aren’t going to help you with a database or human pre-screen, they can help your resume with the 3rd and 4th audience - the hiring manager and the hiring manager’s boss, peers & team.

Like anything else in a resume, customized skill sets have a much better chance of matching the fit an employer is looking for. For instance, claiming that you’re a self-starter probably isn’t a fit for a highly structured management driven team. On the other hand, saying that you work well in a structured environment probably isn’t a good fit for a startup.

Examples of Soft Skills:

Verbal communications skills

Written communications skills

Superior listening skills

Public speaking

Self starter

Thrives in structured environment

Takes initiative

Responds to supervision

Works well in teams

Independent

Sense of humor

Takes personal responsibillity

Team player

Individual producer

Puts others at ease

Gets the job done

Thrives under stress

Creates urgency

Acts with urgency

Provides excellent customer service

Responsive to customer’s needs

Customer service oriented

Responsive to organizational needs

Effectively sets priorities

Adaptive to change

Multi-tasker

Focused

Motivating others

Well organized

Creating new ideas

Empathetic

Puts people at ease

Creates energy

Advisory skills

Goal oriented

Task oriented

Takes responsibility

Accepts responsibility

Delegates effectively

Problem-solver

Can see both sides of issues

Self-confident

Honest

Loyal

Opportunistic

Positive attitude

Dependable and reliable

Self-motivated

Builds consensus

Money-motivated

Professional

Enthusiastic

Makes others feel important

These are just examples, but no where near a complete list.

You’ll notice that some of these terms are opposites, so some may not make sense to include together in the same resume. In other cases, these opposites can demonstrate that you can act in more than one way, depending on the circumstances (ex: professional vs enthusiastic).

How can you tell which are the right words to use?

Start out with a base list that describe yourself. But learn more about your target company before sending - learn about their corporate style, their internal language. Are they conservative and serious? Or are they liberal and loose? Study your target company’s language by becoming a job search anthropologist (http://recareered.blogspot.com/2010/04/why-good-career-changers-are.html). Focus on the words and tone a company uses in it’s communication. For example: look at the difference between Twitter and IBM - do you think they look for different types of people, even though they are both High Tech companies? Customize your soft skills to match the company’s internal culture, tone, and needs.

Readers - Please add any descriptions of soft skills that you’ve found to be effective in your resume, or resumes that you’ve read.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

It happened to me a couple of years ago. There was this new website and I just couldn’t see how it could possibly benefit me. It seemed like it was just a bunch of kids playing games. About a year passed until I decided to invest some time into testing it out. But when I went to register, I found that @philrosenberg was already taken, by the VP of Gaming for Sony, who shares my name.

There are hundreds of social media sites - which ones should you care about?

Fortunately, there aren’t too many that are critical. But there are 4 that are an absolute must to own your name, and 6 others that are a good idea also.

Must haves for job seekers:

Google: Surprisingly, not a lot of people know that they can register their own name on Google. Grab yours while you still can

Linkedin: Linkedin gets about 10x more traffic than Monster - it is now the world’s most popular job site

Facebook: With 500 million people on Facebook, if you haven’t already claimed your name ... you may be too late

Twitter: Don’t let what happened to me, happen to you also

You don’t even have to use these sites right away. Maybe you’re not looking for a job now, but chances are that you will look for one at some point in the future. If you wait, it may be too late.

Nice to have name ownership for job seekers, especially if yours is already taken in the top 4:

Plaxo: Plaxo is a smaller version of Linkedin, but more of an online business card and contact synchronizer

MySpace: Your name may still be available and MySpace can get you on page 1 of Google

ZoomInfo: Online business directory

Spoke: Online business directory

Jigsaw: Online business directory

Yahoo & Hotmail: Yahoo’s name registration has been around as long as Yahoo Mail - You may be too late

Ok, it’s a way out there example, but what if your name is Jim Smith, you’re an accountant and if none of the sites listed above have your name available? What can you do?

The fail safes:

Blogger: He was killed in 1994, so he probably doesn’t own http://jimsmithcpa.blogspot.com - and it’s free

Wordpress.com: Just in case he blogger is taken - it’s free too

Your own website: If you own http://jamessmithcpa.com you can manage it so that it will appear on page 1 of Google under certain searches, so you’re not confused with the Representative from South Carolina. You could also use http://jamessmith.biz or http://jamessmith.info which are also both open.

You don’t have to write very much in these and can just post links to interesting news stories (better yet, articles about your industry). That may be enough to have you found of the first page of Google, rather than the scoundrel that shares your good name.

Even if you’re not in job search mode now, take an hour and claim your name ... so someone else doesn’t get there first.

Readers - Do you have any interesting stories about how someone else shared your name and was found on page 1 of Google? Has it ever damaged your job opportunity?

Recruiters - How about you? Have you ever had a candidate who wasn’t hired due to a Google search that uncovered information about someone else with the same name?

Friday, October 12, 2007

First, the article said that it was still a legal question to be decided by the courts. However, a British Judge recently ruled in favor of an ex-employer, saying that the employee built the network on company time, using a company computer, and a company’s email address. It’s much the same as many companies for years have asked departing employees for their Rollodex - Social networks, Outlook, and CRM systems are today’s Rollodex.

It was also interesting that Recruitingblogs.com polled readers if they thought they owned their social networks or if their employers did. 76% felt that they owned their own social networks. The 24% who felt that social networks were the employer’s property were all lawyers. That tells me there is significant risk.

2 major ways you protect your social network:

There are 2 major ways you can protect yourself, even if your employer tries to claim your social network.

Possession is 9/10ths of the law: Use your own personal email, not a corporate email. Set up a free Gmail, Hotmail, or Yahoo email account - when you leave your employer, the email leaves with you, your employer has no access to your personal email and has zero claim over email address ownership. Using a corporate email account gives you no control if you are unexpectedly fired - if you are given a box and asked to clean out your desk, you can assume that access to your email account has already been shut down.

Backup, Backup, Backup: You can backup your full Linkedin database, into a .csv file that can be read by Outlook or Excel ... or loaded into a new Linkedin account. Just click the Contacts tab, then My Connections. Scroll to the bottom right of the My Connections page, and click export connections. It will download your Linkedin network to a .csv file. For Twitter and Facebook, however, there is no backup capability.

For Facebook and Twitter, your only protection is using a personal email.

Readers - Do any readers have stories about their social networks being hijacked by ex-employers?

Thursday, October 11, 2007

Job Openings Added This Week - 10/11/10:

The business service, hospitality, telecommunications, defense, banking and health care verticals are the top industries with new job postings this week based on a survey of the nation’s leading job advertisements added during the past seven days for the week of 10/11/10.

Business service led new hiring advertisements this week as IBM, Deloitte, ADP, Booz Allen and CSC were included in the top job advertisers this week. Hospitality firms added advertisements this week as Pizza Hut, Marriott and Hilton were searching for new employees.

Telecommunications was next as AT&T and Verizon were in the top firms adding advertisements for new hires this week. Defense added as General Dynamics, Northrup Grumman and US Army posted new ads this week.